


Shattered

by OopsIShipTheThingArchive



Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Angst, Gore, M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:11:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OopsIShipTheThingArchive/pseuds/OopsIShipTheThingArchive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>I see dead people</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for major, major wump on Hiro. I'm sorry. Kind of.

The first ghost Hiro remembers seeing was that of his mother.  He’d been playing in his room, listening to the thumps and muffled muttering from Aunt Cass downstairs. He’d been confined after he took advantage of his parents absence and Cass’s relatively lax supervision to fingerpaint several walls with hot sauce (Aunt Cass has no appreciation for _art_ ).

Then, suddenly, he wasn’t alone on his bed.  The mattress dips, and he looks up and squeals.  “Okaasan!"

She’s not looking at him, folded over, shoulders shaking, and Hiro bounces up to his knees, arms raised and hands grasping.  “Okaasan, up!"

She lifts her head, and Hiro freezes.  His entire body chills.  Her face isn’t right.  One side droops, and her jaw seems lopsided.  Crimson trickles from her hairline, and one eye can’t seem to focus as her attention finally lands on him.

“Oh no…oh Hiro, baby.”  Her voice is wet, liquid, and he shrinks back.  “Hiro, I’m so sorry.  I love you.  I love you, and Tadashi, and Cass.  You’ll tell them I love them, won’t you?”  He can’t think of anything to do but nod.

She smiles shakily around chipped red teeth.  “We love you, Hiro.  Okaasan and Otousan love you.  We’re going to miss you."

And then she’s gone.  Hiro is left shivering in his suddenly freezing room, just as the phone rings downstairs.

He’d tried to do as she said, tried to pass her message on to Tadashi and Aunt Cass.  He’d tried to explain, reaching for his brothers tear-soaked cheeks with chubby baby fingers, that Mama had an Ouch but it was okay, she still loved all of them.

He thought it would help, but instead Tadashi flung him away, face twisting.  “Mama doesn’t have an ouch, Hiro!  Mama’s dead.  Dad’s dead, they’re dead and they aren’t coming back and stop talking about them!"

Hiro closed his mouth, withdrawing from his brother’s uncharacteristic anger, and vowed he’d never upset Tadashi like that again.

* * *

 Years later, he did tell Tadashi.  He had too.  He couldn’t keep secrets from his big brother.

Not when small possessions disappear from their room and reappear in odd places.  When the bathroom door slams shut of its own accord at random intervals.  Especially not when he sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night screaming.

Tadashi’s silent for a very, very long time, and Hiro holds his breath.

“You really did see Okaasan, that day?” he asks finally.

Hiro nods, and shudders.  At ten years old he can’t remember his mother when she was alive, but he did know he’d seen just what the accident had done to her.   _That_  he didn’t share with Tadashi.

He tells him other things he’s learned.  That the ghosts want something.  Some of them have unfinished business, some just want someone to hear and remember them.  That sometimes they’re angry, and break things, but they’re usually just scared.  That the high school they both attend is haunted by the ghost of a suicide (impact injuries, shattered bones, empty eyes).

Tadashi listens, brows furrowed, and when Hiro’s done he just gathers his brother in his arms and holds him as if he might shatter with too much pressure.

* * *

 Hiro got used to seeing ghosts every day.  To the bloodied faces in the crowd, to the gruesome injuries sustained in car wrecks and industrial accidents, to the protruding eyes and tongue of hanging victims.  It was upsetting, sure, but with Tadashi there to talk to, Tadashi’s bed to crawl into after a particularly scary encounter, Hiro thinks he can handle absolutely anything.

Until the night he comes home from the showcase to find his burned blackened bloody brother sitting on the end of his bed.

Hiro stops at the top of the stairs, a cry breaking like glass in his throat.

Tadashi looks lost, eyes seared and sightless.  Blood trickles in red rivulets from his cracked flesh, bright against his charred skin.

Hiro’s knees give out beneath him, and he barely feels it as his shins hit the floor with a crack.

Tadashi’s right side is a shredded mangled mess, gleam of white bone sickening against bloody crimson and Hiro knows that ghosts look like they did at the moment of their death, that maybe Tadashi wasn’t conscious (he couldn’t have been he couldn’t Hiro couldn’t stand the thought) but he was still alive, still _there_  as his body was torn apart.

A small sound trying to become a scream forces its way out between his lips, and Tadashi’s blind gaze snaps up.  “Hiro?”  Then he flashes out of sight.

Hiro _crumples_ , all feeling draining from his body to be replaced with ice, except the burning, choking, vicious heartbeat in his throat.  He curls up on the floor and sobs himself into exhaustion.  He falls asleep right there on the floorboards, clutching his sore stomach and hoping vaguely that he’ll never wake up.

* * *

 When he does wake it’s to a few minutes of blissful forgetfulness.  He’s tucked into his own bed, still fully dressed, and for a moment he can’t figure out why his clothes smell like smoke.  There’s the arhythmic sound of typing from just beside his bed, and he rubs his eyes as he sits up, ready to tell Tadashi to cut it out. 

But the sight of his brother snaps him back to the present and horrible reality, and he barely suppresses a scream.  Tadashi’s back is to him, his eyes fixed on the blank screen of the monitor.  From this angle he can see that Tadashi’s head is broken in like badly molded putty, intact flesh softening the edges of shattered parietal bone.

Hiro heaves involuntarily, choking, and Tadashi doesn’t so much as look up.  It’s then, with a chill that seems to stab straight to his bones, that he realizes why his brother is ignoring him.

_Ghosts only see what they want to see._

Either Tadashi doesn’t want to see or speak to him, or his brother doesn't know he’s dead.  Hiro swings his legs over the edge of his bed, lifts himself to wobbly feet, and lurches towards the silent specter.

“Tada—“ is all he gets out before his hand passes through the place Tadashi used to be as he disappears again.

Hiro’s left standing next to the empty chair, sour bile in his throat as he helplessly repeats his brother’s name over and over again.

* * *

 In the morning Hiro runs away from a ghost for the first time in his life.  He’d occasionally been scared into Tadashi’s bed, but he’d never been driven all the way out of his room.  But with his brother appearing at random intervals, completely unaware that he’s forcing Hiro to witness his terrible wounds, Hiro can't take it.

He gathers all the blankets off his bed and hauls them down to the couch in the living room.  Aunt Cass tries feebly to engage him in conversation, but she’s still almost as much in shock as he is, and when he rolls the blankets into a protective cocoon and burrows into it she quickly gives up.

Every time he shuts his eyes he sees his brother, eyes white and staring against charred skin and shattered bone, grasping tattered fingers and shredded green blazer.  So instead he stares at the worn material of the couch until his eyes water and his mind finally lets go of consciousness in favor of blissful ignorance.

* * *

 The next day is Tadashi’s funeral.  They bury a box of shattered bones and teeth, all that could be recovered.  They wouldn’t let Hiro see, though he hadn’t really expected anything else when he’d asked the grim-faced police officer.  He wasn’t really sure why he wanted to see his brother’s body.  Maybe it would give him some sort of closure.

As if he could get any kind of closure when he’s scanning the crowd of people in the cemetery, simultaneously hoping for and dreading the flash of his brother’s face.  He can see the way people look at him, white-faced and dry-eyed, but he can’t seem to summon up the tears, or any emotion really.  He just feels drained, and wishes he could go back to sleep for another twelve hours.

Cass moved his blankets back up to his bed, but he’s grateful as he escapes the pitying looks and the agony in the eyes of Tadashi’s friends.

He’s just at the top of the stairs when he walks into a sheet of icy air, turning his breath to mist.  He backpedals and almost falls down the stairs, staring wildly around his empty bedroom.  Past a certain point the air temperature rises again, but he’s still shaking as he curls his arms around himself.

He can’t actually see Tadashi, but he knows his brother’s somewhere in the room.  He slumps down on the top step, face in his hands, trying to steel himself.

There’s a thin breath of cold wind against the back of his neck, and _now_  the tears come, hot against his freezing cheeks.  “I miss you,” he whispers.  “I miss you, Tadashi.  I don’t know how to live without you."

There’s no response, and with a last hiccup he’s left staring blindly at his shaking hands.  The sudden burst of emotion is gone and he gets up and walks slowly over to collapse on his bed.  He doesn’t care, he _can’t_  care, he just wants to sleep forever.

* * *

 Hiro wakes to the feeling of fingers combing through his hair.  He hums and scoots closer to the other person, curling against the furnace-like heat.  It’s several seconds before he realizes that the fingers keep catching in his hair, that the air against his back is freezing cold, and that he can hear the low rumble of his brother’s voice.

His throat clamps on a whimper, and tears leak out between his closed eyelids.

Tadashi stinks horribly, a clotting cloying miasma of metallic blood, cooked meat, and something like scorched corn chips (later Hiro will look it up and learn that it’s the smell of burned hair and skin and connective tissue; right now all he knows is that it turns his stomach).  His voice is tight and harsh, singed vocal cords occasionally crackling.  “I’m sorry, Hiro.  I didn’t even see you trying to talk to me.  I didn’t know what happened.  I thought…I thought I was alive, and you were mad at me for being so stupid and running in there.  Or that you knew what a horrible brother I was."

Hiro almost sits up, eyes blinking open.   His face is inches from the shredded flesh of Tadashi’s right thigh, and he forces them shut again.  If Tadashi can talk to him when he thinks Hiro’s asleep, then he’s not about to interrupt.

Tadashi’s hand clenches sharply, tugging at his scalp, and he huffs out an involuntary breath.  Instantly the hand relaxes, and Tadashi sighs.  “I can’t believe this happened to me.  I didn’t know what to do or how to handle it.  But I guess this is for the best."

Hiro shakes his head slightly, but Tadashi doesn’t seem to notice.  The petting moves slowly down to the back of his neck, and pauses.  One finger runs lightly forward to his earlobe, along his jawline, up to ever so gently pull down at his bottom lip.  Tadashi shivers and yanks his hand back.

Hiro’s holding his breath, waiting, when he hears a muffled sob.  “I’m so sorry.  I’m the worst brother.  I shouldn’t think of you like that.  I should have moved out or something."

Hiro feels like the blood drains from all of his limbs, leaving them cold and tingling.  Tadashi _can’t_  mean what he thinks he means, he _can’t_.  There’s no way.

“I’m disgusting, and I deserve this, I deserve all of this, I loved you and I should be stuck here forever for it."

It’s something in the tone that he says ‘I loved you,’ some soul-deep _pain_  that makes Hiro sit straight up, grasping hand passing right through Tadashi’s arm.  He catches a glimpse of the horrified expression on Tadashi’s face before he vanishes again.

Hiro sits there for a long minute, hand outstretched to empty air.  Slowly his shoulders tense and his fingers curl into a fist.

“Stop doing that!” he screams at the empty room.  He slams his fist down against his knee, relishing the physical pain. “Stay and talk!  Stop running away, you…you…” but even with angry tears streaming down his cheeks he can’t actually bring himself to say what he’s thinking.

His anger is far from burnt out and he reaches out blindly for his bedside table.  He doesn’t see what he grabs before he flings it, and it shatters wonderfully against the far wall.

“Get back here and talk to me!  I need you back!  I need you I need you I can’t live without you Tadashi please come back I need you with me—"

He screams until lack of air folds him over and he draws up his knees to keep himself upright.  Eventually he runs out of words and he’s just heaving in deep breaths and they’re tearing out again.  He feels like he’s drowning but he can’t stop, not even when Aunt Cass sprints up the stairs, not when she’s wrapped him in her arms and is trying to shush him.  Only when his strained throat can’t produce anything more than pitiful squeaks does he stop, rocking in his aunt’s grasp as he cries.

* * *

 He knows Cass is worried about him.  He knows he should make more of an effort to seem normal.  He still spends as much time as he can asleep, trying to forget about reality.

Aunt Cass brings him food three times a day, at first an endless round of casseroles (why do people seem to think that burying them in a never-ending supply of casseroles will _fix_  things?)  After a week or so she’s cooking again, and he can’t decide if he’s grateful that she avoids all of Tadashi’s favorites or not.  Sometimes he tries to eat, but all it takes is a whiff of that smell his brother brings with him to thoroughly kill his appetite.

Cass thinks he’s still grieving, and that’s part of it, but even when he starts to feel pangs of hunger again he can’t force anything down.

He still can’t talk to Tadashi.  Every time his brother appears he tries.  He’s tried faking sleep, calling out as soon as Tadashi flickers into view, creeping up on his translucent form to touch his shoulder.  Nothing worked.  Clearly something is keeping Tadashi here, and after a few more whispered confessions when he thinks Hiro’s asleep, the younger is pretty sure he knows what it is.

Tadashi _loved_  him.  More than a brother should.  And it was tearing him up inside.  Hiro spent hours in the chair next to Tadashi’s bed, staring into space, completely at a loss as to what to do with this information.

“But why didn’t you tell me?” he asks the empty room.  “Why didn’t you tell me how you felt?  I could have—I could have _helped._   Why did you think you had to do _everything_  by yourself?"

He doesn’t get an answer.

Three weeks after Tadashi died he collapses onto his brother’s bed, careful not to muss the carefully made-up sheets.  It doesn’t smell right anymore, Tadashi’s scent is fading and dusty.  Hiro curls up on top of the blankets, staring at his brother’s hat, breathing as lightly as he can as though if he breathes too much of it in that last trace of _Tadashi_  would be gone forever.

“I miss you so much,” he whispers.  A cold breeze rattles the divider, and he curls into a fetal position, legs tucked up against his chest.  “I loved you.  I don’t know if it’s the same way you did, but…I loved you and I need you.  So please just listen to me!"

There’s no response.  Hiro reaches up and grabs Tadashi’s pillow, pulling it down to rest his head on it.  It smells musty, with just a bit of Tadashi’s shampoo and a sour hint of sweat.

He turns his face into it and breathes in deep.

* * *

 Finally he comes up with an idea.  His journal.  He keeps it hidden in a shoebox under his bed, but he knows Tadashi would never be able to resist the temptation.

He writes out everything Tadashi had told him, as close to the exact words as he could.  That takes up most of a page, though the smudges and crossings-out must account for almost half the space.

He pauses for long minutes, gnawing absently at the end of his pen, trying to work out what he wants to say.  Nothing seems quite right, he can’t make a confession this weighty on paper.  Finally he settles on a single sentence: “No matter what, you’re still my brother and I love you."

He stashes the book under his mattress, waiting for Aunt Cass to check on him before she goes to bed.  With the coast clear he pulls it out and leaves it open on his desk, Megabot holding it open to the page he’d just filled.

The trap set, he crawls onto his own bed and leans back against the headboard, resting his chin on his knees.

He doesn’t have long to wait.  Within twenty minutes the papers are ruffled as if by a slight breeze, and Hiro holds his breath.

Tadashi fades into view bit by bit, first an amorphous mist, then a foggy torso, then suddenly he solidifies, clarifies, and picks up the journal.  Hiro’s head is spinning from lack of oxygen, and he finally exhales as quietly as he can.

Tadashi’s head jerks up.  His eyes are still seared blind and his head sways as he tries to focus.  “Hiro?"

He shows no sign of disappearing, and Hiro inhales through chattering teeth.  “Hey, Tadashi."

The left side of Tadashi’s mouth quirks up into a painfully soft crooked smile.  “Hey, knucklehead."

Hiro chokes but he’s smiling back, heart pounding it is throat.  “I missed you."

Tadashi’s smile falters, and he steps forward.  “I’m sorry, I don’t see you, Hiro…"

He bites his lip on a whimper, and swallows his tears.  “That’s okay.  I’ll just…talk until you get over here.  I’m on my bed, there’s—“ he starts to warn his brother about an action figure that had somehow ended up on the floor, but he cuts himself off as he sees Tadashi’s foot pass straight through it.  “Never mind, just…I need to talk to you, Tadashi."

His brother heaves a sigh, and Hiro swallows but can’t seem to look away from the expansion and contraction of ribs under his torn shirt.  Tadashi sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, then lifts his feet so he’s sitting cross-legged facing Hiro.  “So."

Hiro can’t help but snort.  “So?  That’s all you have to say?"

Tadashi smiles again, and his heart shatters just a little bit more.  “It was all I could think of, sorry."

Hiro can’t reply because _this_  is what he missed, being with his brother is so easy and _natural_ , even now, and that feeling is drowning him.  Tadashi waits, head turned slightly so his good ear faces Hiro, and he finally groans.

“I’m sorry, Hiro.  If I thought you could hear me I wouldn’t have said anything.”

Hiro shakes his head, then remembers Tadashi’s vision and finally speaks.  “No, Tadashi, I think…I think you needed to tell me.  And it’s really okay."

Tadashi whines low in his throat, shaking his head.  “It’s not!  You’re my brother, and you’re…you’re way too young. I shouldn’t have ever even thought about it.  Maybe if I went to a therapist or something they would have taken me away from you—"

“Stop it!”  Hiro’s hand sinks into Tadashi’s chest when he goes to push him, and he winces as Tadashi jumps.  “Cut it out, Tadashi, and listen to me!”

The elder heaves in a shuddering breath, finally falling silent.  Hiro pulls back, still leaned in, shaking as he tries to find his words.  “Look, Tadashi, I don’t know…I don’t know if I felt the same way you did, but I think I did.  I know I never wanted to lose you.  When I thought about where I’d be in years, I always thought I’d be there with you.  We’d never be apart.  The Hamada brothers are going to change the universe, remember?"

Tadashi gives a wet little chuckle at that.  Hiro hiccups a little, pain clenching in his chest, and he can’t breathe around it for a long moment.  “The point is…maybe I wasn’t ready for this, but if I had found out it wouldn’t have changed anything.  I still love you.  I still wish—"

He tries to say it, but he can’t, because if he says it it will be lost forever.  Tadashi wipes at his cheeks as if he’s crying, though Hiro can’t see any tears.

“I wish I’d been a better brother."

That’s what he needs, and without thinking he blurts out, “I wish I could spend the rest of my life with you.”  It’s garbled around tears and his constricted throat, but Tadashi stills instantly.  Hiro rocks back and curls up, wiping his face against his wrists and mostly just smearing his tears across his cheeks.  “I’m going to have to live without you, ‘Dashi.  I don’t know if I can do that."

Tadashi reaches out hesitantly, and when his fingers brush the back of Hiro’s hand the touch is light and wispy but he can _feel_  it.  “I know you can,” he says firmly.  “You’re going to be so great, Hiro, I know you will.  You don’t need me.  You’re going t be fine."

Hiro whimpers, but Tadashi shushes him before he can protest.  “You _will_ be fine.  I wish we’d had more time together, but you’re going to be okay.”  Hiro shakes his head but he manages a trembling smile at his brother’s insistence.

“I’ll try,” he says quietly.  “I’m glad you told me.  I’m glad I know how you felt."

Tadashi’s head lifts, and he focuses on something over Hiro’s shoulder.  “What’s that?"

Hiro closes his eyes.  “I don’t know.  You’re the only one who can see it."

He feels like he’s breaking into a million pieces, falling apart and he’ll never be able to put himself back together.

“I think I’m supposed to go now.”

He forces his eyes open, because he’s never going to see his brother again—and blinks.

Tadashi’s whole again, green blazer and brown eyes intact as he looks down at Hiro, and Hiro forces his lips into a smile.  He refuses to blink as Tadashi slowly fades, his vision blurred by tears, trying to brand this last image of his brother into his mind.  He stares long after he’s completely gone, trying to convince himself that it’s not really over.  Finally he tips over on his bed, crying soundlessly and clutching the empty hole in his chest where his heart used to be.

* * *

 Tadashi was right.  Of course he was.  Hiro thought about it a lot over the next few weeks.  After he dropped a piece of Megabot on his foot the next morning and accidentally activated Baymax he’d finally started to heal.  He was never going to feel whole again, he was always going to miss his brother.

But as he watches paramedics attending to Callaghan’s daughter after the ordeal in the portal, he knows.  For Tadashi, he can do this.

Hiro Hamada is going to change the _universe_.


End file.
